The invention relates to a magic trick in which one part of a scene is caused to disappear or to be invisible while another part remains visible and essentially unchanged.
It is known to conceal printed information by laminating lenticular screens, composed of transparent sheets formed with series of parallel adjacent lenticules with printed sheets or I.D. cards to preventing exact copies of the information being made by conventional office photocopying techniques, has been known for many years. It is also prior art to prevent legible photocopying by providing opaque lines or striae along central longitudinal axes of respective individual lenticules of the screen which are magnified or spread by the lenses so that the information is completely masked or blanked out unless the laminated sheet is viewed obliquely. It is also well known, for example on I.D. cards, postcards or greeting cards, to laminate lenticular screens on pictures composed of alternately different image elements only selectively visible through the lenticular screen when viewed at different angles to provide different images, images of a same scene from different angles, or motion picture effects.
However, none of the prior approaches are suited for the purpose of the present invention.
An object of the invention is to provide a magic trick in which a first part of a scene is caused to disappear or to be invisible while a second part remains visible and unchanged except where it appears to extend over and replace portions of the first part of the scene.
According to one aspect, the invention includes the steps of providing a scene comprising first and second subjects extending in mutually perpendicular directions; providing a lenticular screen having a series of parallel lenticules; and, relatively positioning the lenticular screen and the scene with the lenticular screen extending a predetermined distance spaced apart from and in front of the scene and with the lenticules extending in a same direction as the direction of extension of the first subject so that when an audience observes the scene through the lenticular screen, the first subject is invisible while the second subject (extending perpendicular to the direction of extension of the lenticules) remains visible. The second subject appears unchanged except where it extends over locations fromerly occupied by the first subject.
In one embodiment of the invention, the second subject comprises a series of printed horizontal parallel stripes or solid bars/wires forming a background for the first subject which comprise a upright human figure, living creature or other vertically extending article printed or live, adjacent the second subject and, preferably, in the foreground.
Apparatus according to the invention comprises a stage, a lenticular screen with a series of parallel lenticules extending in a common direction mountable across a front of the stage and a screen marked with first and second subjects having major axes extending in mutually perpendicular directions and positionable extending across the stage spaced apart behind the lenticular screen with the major axis of the first subject extending in a same direction as the extension direction of the lenticules so that when an audience observes the scene through the lenticular screen, the first subject is invisible while the second subject (extending perpendicular to the direction of extension of the lenticules) remains visible.
In one version of the invention, a standing figure of a toy soldier is placed in front of a surface printed with horizontal striped stripes. When a person looks at this scene they see a soldier standing in front of background of striped stripes. The portions of striped stripes behind the soldier are blocked from view by the soldier. When the same scene is viewed looking through a lenticular screen with the lenticules in a vertical position and the lens at the right distance, the person viewing this scene cannot see the soldier, and the portion of the horizontal stripes of the background that were blocked from view by the soldier now seem to be visible, so the person looking at this scene sees the entire background of horizontal striped stripes creating the illusion that the soldier has completely disappeared i.e absent!
This same illusion is created even if the soldier is a printed image of a soldier on a printed background of horizontal stripes. The printed image of the soldier appears to disappear and the horizontal background stripes remain, including the illusion of horizontal stripes in the area formerly occupied by the printed image of the soldier.